Fran's sutured fingers closed around Tamis's wrist, pulling her upright with ballroom choreography. "Cooperation suits you, dear Tamis." The surgeon's smile held surgical steel glints.
The younger doctor trembled like a vivisected rabbit post-anesthesia—terror delayed but exponentially compounding. John's mummified form stood sentinel in the corner, formaldehyde perfume mingling with the metallic tang of irreversible choices.
"Regret's an arterial bleed," Fran murmured, thumb stroking Tamis's racing pulse. "Best cauterized quickly."
Tamis's gaze darted to the security monitors flickering with police search footage. "This complex... my life's work... they'll breach the chambers within weeks." Sweat-damp strands clung to her neckline, postoperative exhaustion warring with existential panic.
"Survival paradox," Fran observed, tilting Tamis's chin toward the observation glass. "The suicidal become strangely invested in living... once properly motivated." Her gloved hand gestured to the reanimated corpse. "Shall we discuss your syllabus?"
Fran's gloved hands anchored Tamis's trembling shoulders. "Material attachments are surgical waste," she purred, amber eyes drilling through ocular nerves to parietal lobes. "I'll teach you arcane principles—the kind that erase police databases and rewrite social narratives."
Tamis's postoperative resolve crystallized. "Why invest in damaged goods?"
The surgeon's finger tapped her own lips—a metronome counting synaptic firings. "Divine jurisprudence fascinates me lately. You're... convenient test subject."
Her scalpel glinted as she leaned in. "Three questions, Tamis. Choose wisely."
The younger doctor's gaze flicked to John's mummified groom in the formaldehyde-tinged shadows. "His reanimation... true necromancy or temporal trickery?"
Fran's scalpel tapped the surgical tray with anticipatory rhythm. "Haematurge techniques could achieve this, yes—but why complicate matters?" Her gloved finger traced John's mummified carotid. "A few milliliters of Duochenzi's ichor in the femoral artery... voilà. Reanimation's the easy part. Obedience requires... finesse."
Tamis's brow furrowed at the unfamiliar terms—Haematurge, Duochenzi—yet recognized the clinical sincerity beneath Fran's sardonic tone.
"And your... celestial abdomen?" The question escaped like a trapped nerve impulse. "Some elder god's womb? Or—"
Fran's sly smirk materialized beneath the surgical lamps. "Oh child. Maintaining event horizons in one's colon sounds dreadfully inconvenient." Her nail flicked the starscape incision. "Holographic camouflage. Had you probed deeper—" The flesh parted to reveal ordinary peritoneum. "—you'd have found textbook viscera."
The younger surgeon's fingers twitched with phantom disappointment. "But the cosmic radiation readings—"
"Stagecraft." Fran resealed the incision with magician's flourish. "True artistry lies not in the trick, but the audience's yearning to be awed."
Tamis's fingers twitched against the surgical steel table. Fran's cosmic revelation hung between them—too vast for standard psychiatric frameworks. "Keep the third question," the younger surgeon managed. "For when your... tutorials prove lacking."
Fran's nod carried papal absolution. "Splendid. Let's sculpt that judicial impulse into something... elegant."
Epilogue: Seven Days Hence
Dr. Tamis M. Howard's medical license evaporated like chloroform in sunlight. Colleagues swore they'd never met her; databases purged her fingerprints from every OR log.
Fran reemerged at a Geneva symposium, her resurrected kidney discreetly hidden beneath couture silk. "Classified research," she demurred to paparazzi, "though I did mentor a promising protégé recently."
Investigators cataloged the abandoned chamber's horrors—John Howard's mummified remains, Julie Jane's cyanotic fingertips, stacks of trial transcripts detailing ethical violations that mirrored Fran's early career.
No Tamis. No closure. Only whispered tales of a new arbiter in the medical underworld—one who left verdicts etched in subcutaneous ink and arterial spray.
When mortal courts turn deaf ears, when scales of justice rust—seek the crossroads where concrete bleeds into shadow. Bring your grievance and vengeance precisely at the witching hour. There, Themis adjudicates in clinical darkness.
No perjury withstands her stethoscope's auscultation. No evasion escapes her centrifuge of judgment—she is both gavel-wielding magistrate and headsman's blade made flesh.
[System Alert]
‖ Patient: Tamis Howard ‖
‖ Diagnosis: Judicial Obsession → Remission ‖
‖ Cross-Dimensional Consultation: Quarterly S-rank Clearance Achieved ‖
‖ Next Assignment: 89 Earth-days hence ‖
‖ Consultation Fee: Bioengineering Tome (Superior-grade • Unappraised) ‖
Fran parted argent mists veiling Mistveil Clinic's threshold. "Pity pedagogical efforts don't advance tech trees," she mused, fingers brushing the manual's bioluminescent spine.
Her suture-scarred lips curved as diagnostic runes ignited across the text
[Voidcraft Protocol (Originating from Abyssal Depths)]
[Rarity: Superior]
[Effect: Unlocks associated fabrication systems upon reading. Gain proficiency in crafting "Cartridge-Type Abyssal Wardens" to counter Corrosion. Includes additional blueprints for advanced Abyssal armaments. +15% Analysis Progress upon completion]
[Memo: "Carry your kin into battle!"]
"Fifteen percent baseline comprehension? Worthy of its Superior-grade pedigree." Fran cradled the leather-bound tome, fingers skimming schematic-laden pages that rippled like living tissue.
More grimoire than textbook—the margins crawled with arcane annotations and cross-sectional diagrams of devices bleeding void-black ichor.
When she snapped the volume shut hours later, the clinic's air hummed with alien resonance. "Adequate primer," she conceded, slotting it between Necrotic Hematology and Singularity Suturing on overburdened mahogany shelves.
"Pity." Her scalpel tapped empty reagent cabinets. "Theoretical mastery without practical substrates..." A sigh carried the weight of ten failed research grants. "Like dissecting shadows with photon scalpels."
She gestured with academic ennui. "Another breakthrough shackled by material scarcity. How... pedestrian."
After the commotion in the secret room, Fran felt a slight pang of hunger. After a quick wash and changing into a clean outfit that bore no traces of blood, she stepped out of the clinic. That's right; she was off to buy groceries. To maintain her humanity, she needed to eat normally.
"I really need to hire a maid; I'm so tired of cooking for myself…"
"Fresh eggplants! Juicy eggplants, versatile and just brought in from the South District!"
"Take a look at this jewelry, miss! This yellow crystal bracelet from the land of Sandflow, Atiran, is said to bring good luck—truly worth every penny!"
"Good day, esteemed sir. Allow me to introduce you to our revered sages and guiding lights—the 'White Cup,' representing wisdom and enlightenment…"
The market in the North District was always bustling, no matter the time of day. Among the shops and stalls, one could find nearly everything one might need. Seasonal fruits and vegetables, unique snacks, a variety of handicrafts, and emerging mechanical products…
There were even those preaching, handing out pamphlets alongside eggs, surrounded by a crowd of curious onlookers.
Fran's clinical white stark against the bazaar's chromatic chaos drew glances—brief, apathetic, dissolving like saline in bloodstream. Norington's citizens knew better than to linger on physicians grocery-shopping, though her presence still prickled like misplaced suture.
The butcher's parcel swung from her fingers when the silhouette materialized—Hedda's ashen cashmere scarf blending with November frost, her black habit cut against produce stalls like inquisitorial silhouette.
"Your sensory upgrades took," Fran observed, waving with gloved fingers. "My cortical modifications bypass standard ocular camouflage now?"
Hedda's grey eyes held no humor. "Three disappearances near the clocktower. Your handiwork?"
"Preposterous." Fran adjusted her meat-wrapped bundle. "Locals make substandard specimens—arteries sclerotic, livers fatty..." Her tongue clicked. "Hardly worth the formaldehyde."
"Secondly," Fran's mock indignation crinkled her brow with surgical precision, "had I orchestrated this, you'd be dusting for non-existent particulates."
A tic danced beneath Hedda's orbital ridge—geologic fault line of suppressed frustration. "Noted." Her nod carried tectonic assent.
The Huntress' thoughts spiraled: Apostate deacons dismembered... Rogue alchemist's sigils... None bear Fran's clinical signature. From her cloak's inner pocket, Director Alvin's communiqué burned against sternum—Maintain cautious camaraderie with Dr. Fran. Priority: Observation over eradication.
Unprecedented. The Hunters' Covenant preferred their threats incinerated, not indulged.
"Current case requires forensic consultant." Hedda's gloved hand extended—dagger sheathed in formality. "Your expertise commands the Covenant's coffers."
Fran hefted her grocery satchel. "Alas, previous patient drained me utterly." Her yawn fluttered the market's hanging herbs. "Besides, pork cutlets wait for no autopsy."
Fran blinked innocently, showcasing a cloth bag with two large leeks sticking out of it.
"The guild offers a total case reward of 300 Norlington silver coins."
"Let's get going! I'd be more than happy to demonstrate my medical expertise to Miss Haida. As for dinner… we can prepare it at the reporter's home, no problem."
Watching the unprincipled Fran, Haida pressed her lips together, feeling an inexplicable sense of relief.
Although Dr. Fran was exceptionally skilled in medicine, her eccentric personality was difficult to read. Fortunately, it seemed that she could easily be swayed by money...
Number 11, North District, 131 Red Pheasant Street.
After traversing the stone path through a quaint little garden, the two arrived at the front door of a standalone villa.
Haida knocked on the reporter's door.
A middle-aged woman opened the door. She was dressed in a thick, black velvet gown, her hands adorned with genuine leather gloves, covering her skin completely.
Her attire was not strange; rather, it was quite appropriate. After all, it was late winter, and many women favored such clothing...
Her eye sockets were deeply sunken, dark circles seemingly etched onto her eyelids. A hint of unspoken anxiety lingered in her brow and eyes.
"From the Hunters' Covenant?" The woman's gloved hands trembled against mahogany doorframe.
"Indeed, Mrs. Solani." Hedda displayed the sigil-embossed credentials—crossed scalpels over an inverted scale. "Is Mr. Logan available?"
Fran's pupils narrowed. How quaint—the clandestine order she'd once supplied cadavers to now flaunted pseudo-legal authority. Their emblem's new gilding caught December light differently.
"Honored sisters..." Solani's curtsy included Fran through sheer etiquette. "My husband vanished. Then Fayece... maid Sadi... even..." Her voice fractured. "...Shasha, our corgi."
The widow's gaze kept darting past their shoulders. Her eyes mirrored specimens Fran had seen in rabies trials—corneas clouded with primal terror.
"Four disappearances in descending order—" Fran's tongue clicked. "—humans to pets. How... methodical."
Hedda's palm flattened against the gilded doorframe—a forensic command disguised as request. "We require ingress."
Mrs. Solani's fractured hospitality emerged in staccato gestures. "Forgive my... distraction." Her silk-sheathed tea bags trembled on porcelain—Atiran crimson leaves worth more per gram than forensic pathologists earned hourly.
Fran's boots sank into the Persian rug's woolen tundra. The woven white oak and twin rubies held arcane symmetry—not decorative whim, but heraldic cipher.
Incense coiled from jade censers—soporific musk that made neurotransmitters dance like neurological marionettes. Fran's nostrils flared. Ambergris? Dragon's blood resin? Or something... costlier.
"Fiscal asphyxiation," she murmured, calculating the room's worth in transplantable organs. The chandelier alone could fund six black-market livers.
Hedda ignored the steaming cup. Her gloved finger tapped case files spread across mahogany. "Chronology of disappearances. Now."
"Are you saying that, starting from three days ago, people in your family have been disappearing one after another?"
"Yes." Solani's lips were pressed tightly together, her visible anxiety palpable.
"It all began with Shasha, who went missing from the garden. We thought she had just wandered off to play... The next day, the maid, Sadie, went to look for her, but she never returned. My husband sensed that something was wrong and went to report it at the nearby hunters' church..."
"But just yesterday, he too vanished."
Solani trembled uncontrollably, her voice growing increasingly fragmented, laced with desperate gasps.
"Last night, I fell asleep holding my son, terrified that he would disappear just like the others... And this morning, I woke up alone in bed."
"The next to vanish will probably be me..."